Rudolf Steiner
(1861-1925)__________
"Rudolf Steiner is a philosopher, visionary, theoretician of "spiritual science" and creator of Anthroposophy. In France, the character is poorly known, or else shrouded in a haze of legends - a legacy of galloping Germanophobia at the beginning of the century. And yet, what a story! With all his facets, his contradictions, his excess, his genius, his madness, Steiner is indeed the precursor of everything that agitates us in the 21st century." (1)
“Rudolf Steiner was first appreciated in professional circles for his research on Goethe, but also as a philosopher, author and wise literary critic. Later, he would be known worldwide as the founder of anthroposophy and the Steiner-Waldorf schools, as well as an artist and reformer of social life. His biography reveals a character full of dynamism, unparalleled creativity, whose thinking went against the materialist conventions of his time to innovate in many areas. Throughout his life, he worked intensely to develop a new conception of the world which places the link between the human being and the cosmos at the center of consciousness. Indeed, one of his main ideas consists in considering man in his double physical and spiritual dimension."(2)
“Anthroposophy is not a sect, nor a religion, but a movement of critical and dynamic thought, which was formed during the rich hours of this century and under the impulse of various works (Goethe , Kant, theosophy, Nietzsche,…). Through the study and empirical observation of the human mind and for the benefit of a personality extremely sensitive to spiritual phenomena, Rudolf Steiner has come to a knowledge of the suprasensible world and of human nature." (3)
« At the age of 7 Rudolf had a decisive experience: He saw spiritual beings behind trees, which one can see with eyes other than those of the body. From then on the child was in contact with the spiritual entities. » (4)